TwentySix Point Two
by CrossedRoads
Summary: Standing in a crowd of thousands, Alfred looks back on what led him there, and how he's going to get to the finish. Drabble, human names used, Kplus for phrase "bleeding nipples."


_Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia, any characters from Hetalia, Washinton DC, the Iwo Jima Monument, Arlington Cemetery, the United States Marines or the Marine Corps Marathon. I'm not even sure I own myself. This is my first attempt at writing fiction since my role-playing days about eight years ago. Feel free to rip it to shreds in the reviews._

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Alfred grinned, bouncing lightly on his toes, nervous energy pinging through him like lightning. In front of him was a crowd of people so dense he could barely make out one person from the next. Behind him lay more of the same. And somewhere, in front of the crowd of thirty thousand was the beginning of it all.

In truth, Alfred thought to himself, this was the finish- the beginning had been months back, maybe years back. Buried somewhere in a pile of hamburgers, drowned in gallons of diet soda, was the real starting point. He'd always been strong; freakishly so, even for a Nation- he cackled madly at the sudden memory of the look on England's face when America had come jogging up dragging his car and several people inched away from the blonde. Regaining his composure, bending to stretch his muscles, he thought about what led him here.

"_Hey, fatass. You've been gorging yourself so much lately, I'm worried that you're going to kill yourself."_

"_I don't sit around on my butt like you."_

"_I eat like human being instead of use food to cover feeling of emptiness..."_

It had hurt. He hadn't shown it, flashing his winning smile at them and saying something deliberately clueless in return, but it had hurt. While it was true that he'd never be truly obese, another perk of Nationhood, he knew, and the others knew, that America wasn't as fit as he used to be. There was an obesity epidemic in his country, sports and physical education were getting cut from his schools, the economy was suffering, these and a hundred other small things added up and slowed him down. Wore him out. Softened him. And heroes weren't soft.

So he'd bought a pair of shoes.

He could have picked anything- any sport, any regimen, any personal trainer. He was Alfred F. Jones, the United Stated of America. But he decided to run.

Part of it was practical. He traveled, a lot. All over his country, all over the world. He couldn't take workout machines with him, and he doubted he'd find a good gym in some of the places his boss sent him. But there was always ground, and that's all he needed. The other part was pride. You didn't see Superman working with a personal trainer, did you? Spiderman didn't practice his flips and jumps on a set of uneven bars in front of a coach, and the Hulk didn't have a spotter watch him lift weights. Neither would America. He'd do it himself. He bought a pair of sneakers- good ones, probably more expensive than any of the designer loafers or leather boots the Italian brothers wore, and he went for a run.

Twenty minutes later he came staggering back home coughing and wheezing up what he would forever insist was blood. It had sucked; He'd made it less than a mile before shambling home with a stitch in his side. He didn't try it again for two weeks. It sucked then too.

Truthfully, it kept on sucking. He considered quitting until Matthew, the only person he'd told about this whole endeavor, brought up that Germany had once given up beer for the better part of a year, and what was he always saying about being better than "that damn Kraut?" So Alfred ran.

He bought books on running. He bought special socks for running. He gleefully showed up on Mattie's doorstep to show his brother the nifty colors of black, green, and purple his toenails has turned. He decided not to show his brother the first time his nipples bled through his shirt, and instead sucked up his pride and shelled out for the NipGuards he'd laughed at not that long ago.

In one of his books it said that if you could do something for eight weeks it'd become a habit. The book lied. Most training plans are twenty weeks long, and every day he lay in bed and glared daggers at the alarm clock as it blared it's call at 4:30 am. Every week he would yawn as his laced up his sneakers and stumbled out the door into the early morning dark. The first half mile of every run felt exactly like the first time, it sucked just as badly. But sometimes, not every time, it'd change. He'd be shuffling along when he'd notice the pain wasn't there anymore. He could watch his feet hit the pavement and hear the sound of himself breathing like he was watching a movie, like someone else was doing the work. It never lasted long- the side effect of _watching_ yourself run was you weren't watching where you were going, but it gave him a sense of peace and accomplishment. Eventually he grew to enjoy the pain.

Three weeks ago he'd run his longest distance yet, twenty miles. He'd come home exhilarated, exhausted, and terrified. After twenty miles comes what runners call the taper, shorter, lighter runs so he would have time to recover. He'd never run the full distance of the race, the accepted logic being that the thrill of the crowd and the other runners would carry you the rest of the way. But it had been three long weeks, and even his longest run was over six miles shorter than what he was about to do. Would the thrill be enough?

Alfred stretched his muscles one last time and looked up at where he was. In a crowd of thirty thousand, gathered in his own capital, standing in front of the Pentagon, filled with people he knew and worked with every day. He looked at the banner strung across the road, high above the heads of the runners- 2012 Marine Corps Marathon. His Marines would hand him, and thousands of others, a medal as he crossed the finish line, fittingly placed next to the Iwo Jima Monument and Arlington Cemetery. He had known the men that statue was for, knew many who were buried in the fields next to it. When the starting gun was fired and the crowd gave a loud "HOO-RAH!" in return, Alfred knew. It would be enough.

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_AN: I was actually inspired to write this by my dad. He's an Army veteran, pediatric nurse, and marathon runner. He's a hero, and he can cook a mean burger; he and Alfred would get along. All of the details about running and marathons come directly from his blog (dbrundage dot blogspot dot com, you should check it out). More importantly he is going to be running the exact marathon I described in order to raise money for Team Fisher House, an organization that provides housing for families of injured military personnel who are in the hospital- similar to the Ronald McDonald House but for the military. If you can spare a few dollars, be a hero and donate. Alfred would. The link is in the blog mentioned above._


End file.
